


(In An Infinite Universe) Anything is Possible

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Aliens, Being Lost, Gen, Homesickness, Loneliness, Prompt Fill, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for 80s Books prompt:Stargate Atlantis, Evan Lorne +/ any, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)In which Evan is stuck at the edge of the universe, but all is not lost.
Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610332
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	(In An Infinite Universe) Anything is Possible

The outpost was built into the side of a rocky mountain, the top of it an expansive landing pad for all manner of starships, spaceships, and short distance vehicles. It would’ve been an impressive sight to Evan once upon a time, but it had become commonplace even to his artist’s eye.

He’d come in with a salvage crew after a month of back-breaking work. He’d earned enough of the chips that passed for currency to take care of some pressing personal needs and maybe book himself passage on a better class of ship. That was for later. He was dirty, tired, and hungry, and decided to deal with the latter first. He dropped down on the first empty stool he saw at the counter.

“Carbon-based lunch plate, and a carafe of pleskit.”

The translator strapped to Evan’s wrist echoed his words in the proper dialect, and the humanoid creature behind the counter nodded. There was a lot of banging coming from the kitchen, and some guttural grunting that might’ve been words.

Evan tapped the counter-mounted holo-news disc, absorbing updates on shipping lanes, embargoes, wanted fugitives, and a bunch of political junk he didn’t pretend to understand.

Nothing from home. As usual.

“Seven chamdra,” the server said, growls and snarls translated back to Evan in English.

Evan slid the gun-metal gray chips across the counter and took possession of the tray, which contained a meat he couldn’t identify and some root vegetables he was passingly familiar with. Food was food, though, and beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he tucked in, eating without really tasting.

He’d have sold his soul for some of his mother’s vegetarian stew and homemade bread.

When he’d cleaned his plate, Evan pushed it aside and pulled out the little notebook he kept in his jacket pocket. He made a short notation of the day and the stopover, and resisted the urge to count back all the other entries he’d made since being flung through that rogue wormhole. There was no point to it, not when every planet had a differing lunar cycle and he’d lost an unknown amount of time after the explosion on the mining rig that time.

He was almost certain it had been seventeen Lantean months. At the minimum.

“Lonely?”

A Ceranian slid onto the stool next to Evan, leaning in close. Turned out there were sex workers at spaceports just like there were back home at truck stops, though Evan had never taken any of them up on their offers. He wasn’t a saint or anything, and he tried hard to be faithful to the man he might well never see again, but Evan didn’t believe sex should be a transaction.

“I’m good, thanks.”

The Ceranian shrugged and moved on to the next person eating alone. Their race was both male and female, their outward appearance completely androgynous. Evan would be lying if he said he’d never thought what it might be like to spend a few hours with one of them, but he wasn’t willing to pay for it.

Evan put the notebook away and left the restaurant for the observation lounge upstairs. He didn’t know the name of the galaxy he was in – by his count he’d been through three since getting lost, and none of them with a Gate system – but there was a lot of empty black out there. It wasn’t like Pegasus or the Milky Way, where there were stars upon stars, solar systems, nebulas. 

He felt like he was at the end of the universe, right at the edge that would’ve been marked Here Be Dragons on old maps when people thought the world was flat. Evan was no astrophysicist, but he knew the universe didn’t really have an end. It was always expanding. Still, he’d never felt as far away from home as he did at the moment, staring out at the inky black with no stars to guide his way home.

He’d never give up looking for a way back, no matter the difficulties or how long it took him.

Evan turned to go, and then an incoming shuttle caught his eye. It was a short distance ship, small and white with short, angled wings on either side. Almost like a scaled-down version of a NASA space shuttle. Two-person capacity at the most. It wasn’t the specs that made his breath catch in his throat, though.

It was the American flag painted on the side.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Title is a quote from the Douglas Adams novel in this prompt. The shuttle at the end is from _Farscape_ , because who else would be out in uncharted territory? ::grins:: If anyone can get Evan back home, it’s John Crichton.


End file.
